Updated? things.

[Sidology]

I will start off by apologizing for sounding like a negative nancy, doomsayer or whatever you would call me, but I love the game and someone will have to rise against this update.
I suggest writing down a reply or some sort if you at all agree or disagree with me on these points.

There was a time... Where tara raids were awesome, and raffles were really fun.
I got my first freshman title there. I also got my first pieces of dragon armor...
I used it as armor and social armor (when available) ever since..
I have ALWAYS loved the armor, I don't know why.. The color? I don't know.
What I do know is... This new updated texture looks very bad.
I'll be the first to admit I have some nostalgia for the original but-
Let's start with the good actually.. the chest, not bad except for the weird gold trim in the back, warping of the texture and a general loss of fidelity and original color.
At least you kept it looking sorta like the original.

Then we get to the bad parts..
The rest of the set looks so far from the original it hurts my little trader heart.

It is painfully obvious you have no art director or senior artists to guide you.
If you are going to update textures you could at least keep them close to the original and not take away every piece of nostalgia we had for the game.
This is not the first armor you have "updated" to look worse (or in best case, sidegrade) than the original.
Flowers tech was the start, and honestly... I thought you had gained wisdom from that and stopped what you were doing, I guess I was wrong.
You had to continue to remove old armors, such as the Nomad's armor...
I didn't really complain when you used those textures on the new birthday armor, 'cus I actually like change and new things.
But when you start to replace 2D texture masters' work that has always been good enough with amateur's work for no good reason it really irks me.

I suggest you restore the original armor textures and use these new textures on NEW armor to drop in Subway, TOTW, SoM, Foremans, IS etc..
That way new players can feel some sort of progression, but instead you decided to delete old armor that some of us old people actually like.
You made one new armor to last you from 0 -> 220 so new players won't ever upgrade or feel rewarded for playing.
Making old players (like me) not want to play, alienating returning players.. and at the same time pushing new people away from enjoying the game seems like very poor design choices.

Speaking of poor design choices... Making all these items available in shops must be some sort of joke... Where exactly do you propose new players make credits? Certainly not from missions anymore.

I believe I have said this before.. but I will say it again.
New ICC feels like a kids "private wow" server, it does not look or feel professional.
It is a block superimposed on the terrain with weird round overly large structures that serve no purpose, with white textures (that do not belong on Rubi-ka) and other things slapped on top of it as if it was a "test board".

The signs looks like the first things I did when Photoshop was JUST released many years ago; TV Interlace effect filter... really?

The new shop terminals do not feel like they belong on Rubi-ka, I always felt "welcome" to spend all my hard earned credits in the old supermarkets.
I can't say I feel anything other than frustration from the new one.
I also cannot read what the stores say.

All of these changes in combination will hurt the game so much it hurts me just thinking about it.
I for one will not stand for it and will no longer be playing once 18.7 hits live (in this state).
And just to put into perspective on how much I disagree with these changes, I've said nothing when any of the expansions or any update so far has happened.
{edited by Bekrowe: Account status is not allowed}

I also have not said anything about the "profession balance" act that is going in at the same time, as those are tweaks that can be fixed.

I have already offered to make you new whompas, shops and give you a ICC design that at least makes sense compared to how it looks on Live right now, all free of course.
I want no compensation, NOTHING other than to not see these (IMHO. bad) changes on Live.

Quick work, not even close to being "representable"
http://imgur.com/a/ZZIHT
http://i.imgur.com/riSKTXW.jpg

It almost seems like you followed a "how to kill a game 101" manual.

[Brampfine]

it let me feel to be a part of a weird psy study^^
balancing = breaking
all changes i saw greys my hairs
i feel me foreign...

[Sidology]

Edited for a more.. diplomatic and less passionate read. Sorry! :P

[Cratertina]

I feel for you ol' bud.

Change hurts, rearly for the better, yet still I hope You will stick around. Only change can bring improvements.

[Cratertina]

PS. old armors need mew stats not new textures.

[Sidology]

PS. old armors need mew stats not new textures.

Absolutely correct.
And the new textures need to be on new armors.
Sometimes change is good
Sometimes it is not.

At least we can recognize when it is not... And.. Change the change? plees? maybe?

[Leetlover]

Concurring, too much carebear. They seem to create for kids and overly sensitive adults so the complexity suffers. I also had no cyberpunk-feel in the npe whatsoever. Would be great to see WA and Rome revamped instead of icc (which is more a test-thing, not a live-thing) and Arete.

And this:

Temple of the Three Winds have now gotten a new quest and Windcaller Karrec has moved in to a small cargo house in ICC HQ. This quest will allow players to use the portal to the Temple of the Three Winds area which is located inside Karrec's cargo house.

imo, players under level 50 should have to run from greater tir to totw and having to dodge buffed up spiders. They might want to make the clan savespot into a neutral ambassady so all can save near totw tho. The totw-experience as now is too easy and loot is too irrelevant.

Edit:
Pics of new armor?

[Sidology]

snip
Edit:
Pics of new armor?

oh, here.
and here

[revenant342]

I have to agree with you. While I think the new ICC is pretty, it clashes so harshly with the art style of the rest of Rubi-Ka I've been privately referring to it as "neon hell." I thought the same thing about AI org cities when they were released (and I am overjoyed to see them finally removed from the landscape, even if they were one of the only things getting people out and about in RK anymore ), but this new ICC is so much worse, and I don't get why. The APFs fit. They had just the right mix of "high tech" and "wasteland" to complement the existing portions of RK.

Frankly, I've been perplexed by the artistic direction AO's been going since the grass update way back, when we went from "desert planet" to "verdant garden planet" overnight. While the new ground textures looked *good*, they did not look *right*. I feel the same thing here, about ICC, about the shops, about nearly everything.

[Jihnna]

oh, here.
and here

Judging from those, I really like the new look!
I also just had a little visit on test myself, and saw the new mesh for Modified NotuComm Mesh Trenchcoat, and it looks kinda cool.

[Leetlover]

NPE was really bad. Chaotic. Santa's workshop without the holiday-themes would have been sufficient. You learn to interact with the game there and it's more fun. I also don't see the point with a ton of npc's in a mmo-game. These games are supposed to be social.

Thanks 4 teh pics sido.

[revenant342]

Well, a big part of the problem is that there's hardly anyone playing anymore. When I first started playing in 2002, the help channels and OOCs were always buzzing with people asking questions. People took newbies under their wings and showed them the ropes. I remember having a stash of backpacks with QL10 carb suits, a medsuit, and some basic start-up stuff and handing them out in backyards along with tips and advice, because someone did that for me when I was just starting and had no clue what was going on.

I'm not saying the willingness isn't there, but with the low pops it's issue of there just not being anybody a lot of the time. Furthermore, a lot of the online resources I enjoyed back then haven't been updated and maintained, and the learning curve for AO is very high compared to newer MMOs. Of the new players we do get, a lot seem to quit out of frustration or boredom very quickly. Let's face it, progression in AO is a grind. I was never bored because I was surrounded by a lot of great people who made the experience worthwhile. There are still a lot of great people, but they're by and large established players with multiple 220s. I tried to start a new character once and go for the "classic AO experience" with no credit/gear transfers, power leveling, etc. and found myself leveling to 200 solo due to a lack of teams, and that's far from a common experience.

[Leetlover]

I remember having a stash of backpacks with QL10 carb suits, a medsuit, and some basic start-up stuff and handing them out in backyards along with tips and advice, because someone did that for me when I was just starting and had no clue what was going on.

This is what new guys need. A updated start-up vendor.

[revenant342]

It wasn't about the gear. I outgrew it in a couple days. It was about the human connection and making the new player feel welcomed in a world that can be frankly overwhelming at first. I still remember the player who helped me out. It was Acidbrurn. Gave me a couple pet nanos and showed me how to make a trimmer and engineer pistol, and some tips and websites to visit. It was direction that the game didn't provide on its own. Granted, the only other MMO I had played was Earth and Beyond and I was 13 at the time, so it took me an hour to figure out flingshot was a thing and almost a week to figure implants out, but even an experienced gamer would probably be very challenged if they were dropped into AO with no direction on what to do. We don't have the player base to make that kind of thing common, so if it's a choice between NPCs and nothing, I'll take NPCs.

I hope we'll get that level of social interaction when more vets return and an influx of new players when the new engine comes out and the game hits steam. I want nothing more than to see this game rise up again. But AO's going to have to change to meet the times somewhat. It's as simple as that.

[Sidology]

It wasn't about the gear. I outgrew it in a couple days. It was about the human connection and making the new player feel welcomed in a world that can be frankly overwhelming at first. I still remember the player who helped me out. It was Acidbrurn. Gave me a couple pet nanos and showed me how to make a trimmer and engineer pistol, and some tips and websites to visit. It was direction that the game didn't provide on its own. Granted, the only other MMO I had played was Earth and Beyond and I was 13 at the time, so it took me an hour to figure out flingshot was a thing and almost a week to figure implants out, but even an experienced gamer would probably be very challenged if they were dropped into AO with no direction on what to do. We don't have the player base to make that kind of thing common, so if it's a choice between NPCs and nothing, I'll take NPCs.

I hope we'll get that level of social interaction when more vets return and an influx of new players when the new engine comes out and the game hits steam. I want nothing more than to see this game rise up again. But AO's going to have to change to meet the times somewhat. It's as simple as that.

That is right, the NPE is needed in a sense.
But what comes after the NPE right now is ICC... Thats fine and great in theory.
The problem is that it looks unprofessional, doesn't feel like the rest of the game.

One common theme on Rubi-ka ive noticed is that cities have walls, the better safer cities have massive ones. That is a reflection of a unsafe planet.
ICC in game right now is VERY "safe" since it is dug out of a mountain.
It feels completely natural to me to have ICC be a bunker of some sort. The first "city" on the planet, and also the safest.

"We" have both a opportunity and duty to make ICC a awesome and safe place as the first city that new players are introduced to.

The current design doesn't feel safe, right nor does it look good so it is woefully unsuited as a first introduction for new players.

PS: I also feel like giving new players a "Newcomers" armor that levels from 0 to 220 is a littlebit like just being handed carb armor as they go along.
It won't feel rewarding for them at all. I know some dungeons have a few items that drop that they could (at least in the past) enjoy. But it is not enough.
New armor textures should be used to make new armor that drops from the dungeons. NOT to remove old armor (that some of us like).
If anything old armors need updated stats, not looks.